That's raising the prospect that by day's end there may be some "snow cover" in all 50 states (some of Hawaii's volcano peaks almost always have at least a little of the white stuff).

The wonder of all that has University of Oklahoma meteorological student Patrick Marsh on a quest. He's trying to collect fresh snow photos from all 50 states. If you can help, e-mail snow@forwarn.org.

Marsh tells us that as of noon ET or so he had photos from 26 states, with more coming in fast (you could say he's been buried in a blizzard of e-mails!).

He's due to talk with All Things Considered later. We'll update after that with word on his progress.

Update at 2:30 p.m. ET: Marsh told ATC's Melissa Block that as of an hour ago, he had photos from 27 states and Washington, D.C. When (he hopes) he has pictures from every state, he will use Google Earth to create a file that we all can download if want to see what the snow looked like all across the country today.

We'll add some audio clips from their conversation shortly.

Much more from the interview will be on ATC later. Click here to find an NPR station near you that broadcasts the show. And later, the on-air version of the conversation will be posted here.

Update at 3 p.m. ET.

Here is Marsh on the number of photos he'd gotten as of early this afternoon:

All 50 States May Soon Have Snow On The Ground; You Can Help Document It